News

CDA plans to get back land

ISLAMABAD, Jan 16: Bracing themselves for implementing the Supreme Court (SC) order to retrieve state land from encroachers, the city managers say they have prepared a plan to get back the 20,000 acres.

“In a special CDA Board meeting on Monday or Tuesday, the strategy to retrieve land will be tabled,” Ramzan Sajid, spokesman of the Capital Development Authority (CDA), told Dawn on Sunday. Sources said the new strategy was based on the idea that the authority could sell its available plots and use money for acquiring `problematic` lands.

On Friday the SC gave the authority the gigantic task of getting back 20,000 acres worth billions of rupees under illegal possession in different areas of Islamabad.

It has been learnt that the CDA would start re-occupying its land from Malpur and Bani Gala where the number of encroachers is comparatively less than other areas. According to the strategy, the CDA will start the task from Malpur village, where new Diplomatic Enclave has been proposed. “The authority can easily get vacated Malpur`s land because there are no structures on it,” an official of the CDA`s planning wing said. “According to our rough estimates, CDA can earn Rs1 billion by selling a plot of ten kanals to an embassy,” he said.

The money to be earned from the sale of Diplomatic Enclave plot will be sufficient to pay compensation to villagers of other areas for acquiring their lands. Another idea under consideration is joint ventures between the CDA and private firms to get the land from illegal possession and develop it.